Matt Rhule's contract won't save him

[unicar15]

With the Darnold injury I think he gets one more year regardless of outcome. I think Brady is done unless the backup QB comes in and the O performs. 

Tepper is going to give Fitterer marching orders to do what he thinks is best as far as the QB situation. Try to acquire Watson, Wilson, Rodgers, etc first….draft second. 
 

If we swing and miss on an impact QB then I think the writing is on the wall for Rhule and he’s gone after 2022-2023. He won’t win with another bad QB and Tepper won’t tolerate 3 losing years. 

[unicar15]

20 hours ago, CRA said:

current trajectory IMO would still have to change to get that year 3.  current trajectory is downward.   Which means more bad comes with that. 

NFL players flex and demand more and more as the years go on.  If the current trejectory maintains, you got to think you will start seeing and hearing about guys talking.  Wanting to bounce to greener pastures.  You can't lose the team and get a 3rd year.   These guys have short windows to play this game. 

So I would generally agree with this but there aren’t many impact UFA on this team. Jackson, Carter, Luuvu, Reddick and Gilmore are really it. 
 

Jackson is probably gone no matter what. Luuvu may or may not be but I’m not sure he isn’t replaceable in Snow’s system. Carter (not sure it matters if he leaves). Reddick is a Rhule guy so Idt he’s leaving bc of Rhule. Gilmore is at the tail end of his career and the cats kinda already out of the bag that his family wants to be in Charlotte. As long as we pay him what his market demands Idt he’s leaving bc of Rhule. 
 

So I just don’t see a whole lot of FA muscle being flexed when everyone else is under contract.
 

Getting a real QB solves ALL of these problems.  

[BIGH2001]

12 hours ago, TLGPanthersFan said:

Rebuilds don’t mean much when the offense is a dumpster fire of Rhules on making and I don’t see it getting any better in 2022 and the defense will likely regress because that is normal. 
People can hide behind the “It’s only year 2 of a rebuild”, which I am getting sick of. But the evidence is that this team is at least 2 seasons away from competing because if we gotta trot Sam “You Get an Interception, Everyone Gets an Interception” Darnold in 2022 this offense is going to be limited and bad again. Doesn’t matter what happens to the offensive line. 

What these “rebuild” posters fall to realize is that the NFL is a year to yeae league. Our 15-1 team went 6-10 the next season. Our 1-15 team was in the super bowl two years later. Nothing is static in pro football. Entire rosters turn over every 3-4 years. At the beginning of last year I think there were 3 or 4 guys left from the super bowl team. Now there’s 2 (shaq and Jansen ).  Acting like this defense we have now will be in place next year much less 2-3 years from now is naive and fails to account for the constant churn that goes on in the NFL. If you’re not winning now you’re subject to being fired. My biggest concern is Tepper is just as lost as Rhule and thinks that you can “rebuild” an NFL team like a college roster where you know the players you’ll have for 3-4 years.

[CatMan72]

I think Rhule will fire Brady when the season is over and get at least one more season to rebuild.

I hope we hire an OC who, you know… has actual experience calling plays in the league.

[SazmoRanger]

21 hours ago, TheCasillas said:

He is not going to get fired. That would be a knee jerk reaction. Tepper will go hard after Watson, and most likely will land him.  If Rhule cant win with Watson, then that would be the etching on the gravestone.

The bottom line is that Rhule came in with 90% roster turnover, and turned a bottom of the league defense into an elite unit. Joe Brady had a strong offense last year and was seen as a wunderkind, but as many pundits have said, people have figured out the offense. Tepper knows this, Rhule knows this (as he mentioned three weeks back that joe brady has a lot to work on)... 

The argument of "well Rhule hired him" goes in the same vein as John Harbaugh hiring (and firing) Marc Trestman as OC. The bottom line is that this FO thought they could shortcut the process with Sam. It didnt work out, but its a risk they took. Tepper supported it. Now they are going to change course and correct. 

Rhule has at least one more year here. Regardless of how we look right now as a team, its still better than what we have seen since Rivera era post Cam injury. 

I cant think of a single coach who had a roster turnover of 90% and turn the franchise into a super bowl winning operation within 2 seasons. we are just being impatient.

For me and a lot of others, I don’t think it’s that WE are impatient. I’d actually say the organization/coaches have been the impatient ones. Two years ago this team was bad and had a lack of talent all over the field. We had just lost Cam, Luke, and Greg. We all knew this was a 3-5 year rebuild. Rhule and co tried to rush the process and have made two very stupid decisions. Both are the signing of Bridgewater and trading for Darnold. Imagine a world where this team made the same decisions minus those two. We’d have the same results except still have draft capital and more cap space. I think a lot of people, including myself, don’t have any faith in Rhule and this coaching staff to make the correct player personnel decisions, specifically on offense. They’ve made two horrible ones that will hurt us at the most important precision in the NFL. 
 

As you’ve said, I believe their only hope to keep this job long term is to somehow get Watson.

[Khyber53]

Told ya this is where we'd be this year. But what do I know?

This season is only going to get worse from here. And by December we're going to be forgetting about how good the defense was.

Rhule and Co. will be gone at the end of this season, headed back to the college ranks. Rhule will probably get another shot in three or four years and do like Pete Carroll and have a winning team quickly on the second ride. Hopefully, Fitterer is shown the door, too.

Then, Tepper will hopefully wise up and get some good advisors to help him with the GM search and coaching search. He has the core of a good team here, but the window isn't large.

[CRA]

2 hours ago, unicar15 said:

So I would generally agree with this but there aren’t many impact UFA on this team. Jackson, Carter, Luuvu, Reddick and Gilmore are really it. 
 

Jackson is probably gone no matter what. Luuvu may or may not be but I’m not sure he isn’t replaceable in Snow’s system. Carter (not sure it matters if he leaves). Reddick is a Rhule guy so Idt he’s leaving bc of Rhule. Gilmore is at the tail end of his career and the cats kinda already out of the bag that his family wants to be in Charlotte. As long as we pay him what his market demands Idt he’s leaving bc of Rhule. 
 

So I just don’t see a whole lot of FA muscle being flexed when everyone else is under contract.
 

Getting a real QB solves ALL of these problems.  

Well I was alluding to the league changing and now you see more and more guys who aren’t at the end of contracts making demands and flexing.  So just being unhappy and not liking what you see has all sorts of people trying to force there way out in today’s NFL

If any coach loses the locker room and players it’s over.  Coach’s contract won’t matter.   And if Rhule is waiting until just a few weeks ago to legitimately talk to Sam….I doubt he is actually tight with the guys. 

[Smittymoose]

3 hours ago, BIGH2001 said:

You could argue that 2021 Carolina is just as bad. This offense is probably worse than the one led by Kyle Allen in 2019. The defense being younger and faster has made no difference because the current staff has mismanaged one half of the operation into oblivion for two years straight. The results show on the field.

A team that has won four games halfway through the season is "just as bad" as one that won three all year? Some of you are truly insufferable. 

[Smittymoose]

12 hours ago, NanuqoftheNorth said:

While I appreciate what you're saying, in the final analysis, Rhule has failed for two years to properly address the short comings of his offense, and in trying to fix them, misdiagnosed the situation and made things even worse.

If Rhule isn't on the hot seat with Tepper by now, he needs to be.

Not really. They missed at QB. There weren't good options. They evaluated the draft options and didn't like them. They wanted to go all-in on Watson, but the legal issues made that situation significantly more difficult. If you want to argue they should have ridden Bridgewater one more year, fine, but the options were not plentiful. 

[Smittymoose]

12 hours ago, CRA said:

Yep.  

2018 - hired a new HC, drafted a top 10 QB

2019- hired a new HC, drafted a top 10 QB 

AZ fugged up, admitted it, and moved on. 

Because Wilks was really bad. Rhule hasn't been really bad, and he had a whole lot more building to do than AZ. You want to be the angry little internet fan that needs someone fired to make you happy, fine, but understand it's a poor way to build a team. 

[rippadonn]

10 minutes ago, Smittymoose said:

Not really. They missed at QB. There weren't good options. They evaluated the draft options and didn't like them. They wanted to go all-in on Watson, but the legal issues made that situation significantly more difficult. If you want to argue they should have ridden Bridgewater one more year, fine, but the options were not plentiful. 

Ok, passed on Hurndog going to get Justin Herbert as his first QB, no to Jordan Love, no to veteran Cam, passed on Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Kyle Trask, Kellen Mond.

Dude doesn't have a clue about QB. Instead he gave TB big money then got fleeced by the Jets.

You may like him and defend him but those mistakes are indefensible.

[Smittymoose]

9 minutes ago, rippadonn said:

Ok, passed on Hurndog going to get Justin Herbert as his first QB, no to Jordan Love, no to veteran Cam, passed on Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Kyle Trask, Kellen Mond.

Dude doesn't have a clue about QB. Instead he gave TB big money then got fleeced by the Jets.

You may like him and defend him but those mistakes are indefensible.

1. A trade up for Herbert is complete speculation. To act like it was or could have been a done deal in hindsight is absurd.

2. What has Jordan Love shown that would suggest he's ever going to be a good NFL QB, let alone a good QB right now? He was incredibly raw and would have had to sit behind a vet.

3. Cam is done. Pretending like Rhule cut 2015 MVP Cam is ridiculous. He stinks out loud. No one wants him because he's toast. 

4. They evaluated the QBs and didn't like them. There's nothing to suggest Trask and Mond are even roster-quality, much less first-year starter quality. Fields has not been very good. Jones has been okay in an extremely conservative offense. None of those options look like franchise-changer QBs right now. 

 

This is bitching for the sake of bitching. 

[CanePantherHornet]

If things keep going down hill I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're all gone, at the very least Joe Brady is gonna fall on the sword.

[Panther'sBigD]

28 minutes ago, Smittymoose said:

1. A trade up for Herbert is complete speculation. To act like it was or could have been a done deal in hindsight is absurd.

2. What has Jordan Love shown that would suggest he's ever going to be a good NFL QB, let alone a good QB right now? He was incredibly raw and would have had to sit behind a vet.

3. Cam is done. Pretending like Rhule cut 2015 MVP Cam is ridiculous. He stinks out loud. No one wants him because he's toast. 

4. They evaluated the QBs and didn't like them. There's nothing to suggest Trask and Mond are even roster-quality, much less first-year starter quality. Fields has not been very good. Jones has been okay in an extremely conservative offense. None of those options look like franchise-changer QBs right now. 

 

This is bitching for the sake of bitching. 

Agree with all but point 3. I think Cam is probably a half decent starter at this point, but he's nowhere near his old self. He still sees himself as a starter and his personality is that of a starter. I think most teams(rightly) believe that having him sitting behind their starter would be a recipe for drama. A player like Cam isn't going to hold a clipboard on the sideline.